Zebra NSight Owner's manual

Brand: Zebra

Model: NSight

Type: Owner's manual

This manual is also suitable for

WLAN

Troubleshooting WLAN with NSight

HOW TO GUIDE

September 2015

jurisdictions worldwide. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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CONTENTS

Preface .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 4

Introducing NSight ............................................................................................................................................................................ 4

How to use NSight to solve client issues faster?............................................................................................................................... 4

Client Troubleshooting Workflow – Example 1 ........................................................................................................................... 5

How to address client association issues using NSight – Flowchart ........................................................................................ 5

How to address client association issues using Nsight Approach ........................................................................................... 5

Client Troubleshooting Workflow – Example 2 ........................................................................................................................... 9

How to address client roaming issues using NSight – Flowchart ............................................................................................ 9

How to address client roaming issues using NSight Approach ............................................................................................... 9

Client Troubleshooting Workflow - Example 3 .......................................................................................................................... 11

How to address network performance issues using NSight – Flowchart .............................................................................. 11

How to address network performance issues using NSight Approach ................................................................................. 12

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PREFACE

A typical IT department handles dozens of support calls from the users related to connectivity issues. Their task is to determine whether

the problem is specific to one particular user or whether it is a larger network issue that needs to be addressed by the network

operations team.

A network administrator on the other hand must be able to constantly monitor the health of the wireless network and be able to not only

resolve issues quickly, but also predict problems and address them before they will cause any negative impact.

The challenge of many networks is lack of proper tools to diagnose a problem. Typically any connectivity issue is escalated to the

network team, as support desk is unable to resolve client-related issues by themselves.

This results in the support desk escalation of very simple user issues to the network operations team, often overloading the team. In

some cases even these resources require additional support directly from the vendor, further escalating the issue and increasing time

to resolution. None of this would have happened if service desk had easy to use tools to monitor and troubleshoot wireless user state or

network admin had full visibility and control over their wireless network.

Among the most common issues as reported by users are:

 “I cannot connect to your Wireless Network”

 “Connection keeps dropping when I’m moving”

 “Your Wireless Network is slow”

INTRODUCING NSIGHT

NSight Advanced Management platform from Zebra Technologies provides ability to address customer issues and monitor wireless

network health with a variety of easy to use user-centric tools. This paper will address common use-cases and provide generic workflow

examples on how NSight can be leveraged for troubleshooting client connectivity and roaming related issues.

HOW TO USE NSIGHT TO SOLVE CLIENT ISSUES FASTER

NSight is divided in to four functions, each offering tools to help different personnel resolve customer issues. Some tools are designed

to help first line support, while some would better suit an experienced network administrator to provide overall view on the network and

help predicting and resolving problems before they become urgent.

Custom Dashboards

NSight offers multi-user multi-screen customizable dashboards. The users can drag-n-drop widgets to their dashboard screens to get

information that is most relevant to them instead of searching through multiple screens. It offers more than 20 widgets that can be used

to graphically view various trend charts on the network and user statistics, like utilization, security, device inventory, client details, RF

health etc. For troubleshooting purposes client details and RF health dashboards will provide

Real-Time Monitoring

NSight provides an ability to monitor client or Access Point behavior in real time, helping immensely in troubleshooting, while the issue

is occurring at the same time.

Reporting

Pre-canned Reports and Custom Reports capture key metrics on Usage Trends, Network Health, Security, Compliance and Device

Inventory. The reports can be generated on-demand or scheduled to be mailed periodically. Reports are a great tool to provide historic

data on issue that was happening in the past, but has been reported only recently.

Advanced Live Troubleshooting

NSight offers advanced troubleshooting tools that can be used by the Level 1 or Level 2 Helpdesk for fast and effective troubleshooting,

minimizing escalations to the network engineers. Network operations team can leverage remote wireless debug and remote packet

capture tools in NSight to dig deeper in diagnosing the issue.

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CLIENT TROUBLESHOOTING WORKFLOW – EXAMPLE 1

Problem: Client connectivity issues or “I cannot connect to your Wireless Network”

How to address client association issues using NSight – Flowchart

Locate a Client in

NSight. Isolate

issue to a single

client or location

Localized (single client)

Check SSID, VLAN,

Username, Signal

Strength, etc

under Client

details

Found the

problem?

Use Event Log

filtered by Client s

MAC and look for

clues

Were you able to

find a root cause?

Yes

Address client-side

issues by further

investigating client-

side or infrastructure

side issues.

Yes

Apply correct

device settings in

order to resolve

the issue

Use Wireless Debug

and Remote Packet

capture to obtain in-

depth detail for

troubleshooting client

issue

Single Client or Site-

wide issue?

Identify on which

SSID and VLAN

problems are

occurring under

Client Details

Spread out (whole site)

Use Event Log

filtered by Client s

location and look

for clues

Found the

problem?

Address found

problem on the

infrastructure or

client side

Yes

Use Wireless Debug

and Remote Packet

capture to obtain in-

depth detail for

troubleshooting

connectivity issues

Check RF Health of

the site using a

custom Dashboard

HOW TO ADDRESS CLIENT ASSOCIATION ISSUES USING NSIGHT APPROACH

1. Identify location and user MAC address by asking the user and confirm it in NSight. The easiest way to find a client is by

searching for its MAC address or part of the Hostname in the upper right corner of the UI:

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2. (In the event the issue is spread across the whole site). Create a custom dashboard and verify RF health, channel utilization at

the site (in the widgets below - always set the RFD name as a site identifier). Check if the RF environment is a possible cause

of connectivity issues affecting a location:

Note: using time-based filter can either provide close to real-time information or a historical snapshot of the environment for the

specified time frame.

3. Confirm that client is trying to associate to the correct SSID. Check client current status. If it is having trouble associating you

would likely see ‘authentication in progress’ or ‘disassociated’ if the client is not currently active. Check which authentication

method is in use on this WLAN (i.e. PSK or any of the EAP methods etc). If any of the EAP methods are in use verify that the

Username is correct. Verify that the client is assigned a correct VLAN ID based on which SSID it is associating to. It may even

happen that client can in fact connect to the wireless network, but failing to get an IPv4 address via DHCP.

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4. Click on the client’s MAC address and then click on Event Log to see logs filtered for this particular user. Event Log will

provide historical data for the specified client and time frame.

5. If event logs are not providing enough information and issue appears to be more complicated, leverage advance remote debug

and remote packet capture tools in order to get detailed info on what exactly is happening to the particular client while

capturing packets / debug logs. This data will be useful for network ops team for deeper investigation on client connectivity

issue:

The remote troubleshooting tools in NSight are very powerful and provide in-depth view of the network, enabling the root

cause to be identified and the problem resolved.

In order to perform remote debug wireless or remote packet capture specify the RF Domain name where you want to capture

information from and filter by the client’s MAC address. More detailed description of Remote troubleshooting tools is available

in “Remote Debug How To”

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Note: It is recommended to save both wireless debug log and packet capture to disk as a file and ask network ops team for data

analysis.

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CLIENT TROUBLESHOOTING WORKFLOW – EXAMPLE 2

Problem: Roaming issues or “My connection/voice call/video stream keeps dropping when moving”

How to address client roaming issues using NSight – Flowchart

Locate a Client in

NSight. Isolate

issue to a single

client or location

Localized (single client)

Check SSID, VLAN,

Username, Signal

Strength, SNR

under Client

details

Use Wireless Debug

and Remote Packet

capture to obtain in-

depth detail for

troubleshooting client

issue

Single Client or Site-

wide issue?

Identify on which SSID

and VLAN problems

are occurring under

Client Details

Spread out (whole site)

Go to the Floormap

view and look for any

oddities like coverage

holes, low SNR, high

retries etc

Found the

problem?

Address found

problem on the

infrastructure or

client side

Yes

Use Wireless Debug

and Remote Packet

capture to obtain in-

depth detail for

troubleshooting

connectivity issues

Check RF Health of the

site using a custom

Dashboard

Use custom Dashboard

and check Client Timeline

to identify where and

when client experienced

roaming issues.

Note:

often odd client behavior can be related to an

AP issue or client driver problem resulting in

ping-pongbehavior of the client. Client

timeline will quickly identify where the client is

experiencing issues and help narrowing down

the issue

HOW TO ADDRESS CLIENT ROAMING ISSUES USING NSIGHT APPROACH

1. Identify the location where the problem has been reported, i.e. site, building, floor, etc. Check overall RF performance at the

specified location; attempt to find any clues to what might look abnormal. This is needed to isolate the issue to a particular

client or location where all clients are experiencing similar issues.

Confirm that users are using correct SSID, are assigned to a correct VLAN, etc (see example #1 for further reference).

2. Drill down to the Floor Map view of the second floor and verify that there is enough coverage and SNR level is sufficient (i.e. >

25 dB).

3. If overall RF Health at the site looks ok then build customized dashboard that will include Client Timeline and a table showing

worst 10 clients by retries and worst 10 APs by retries. This should give you overall idea where you should start looking for

potential root cause:

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4. Look for excessive roaming in the client timeline, i.e. if you see that the user is roaming too often or constantly associating /

disassociating to the same AP during short time period. Zoom into the client timeline widget. Start typing client’s MAC address

and use Search button to auto-complete:

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5. If the above is confirmed and you have identified trouble client(s) run a remote debug wireless and a packet capture filtering by

client’s MAC address, then send capture and logs for analysis to the network operations team. Wireless debug log and packet

capture with show exactly where communication is failing or what could explain excessive roaming events. This has to be

captured live, while the problem is happening in order to obtain relevant data.

CLIENT TROUBLESHOOTING WORKFLOW – EXAMPLE 3

Problem: Poor network performance or “Your wireless is slow”.

How to address network performance issues using NSight – Flowchart

Locate a Client in

NSight. Isolate

issue to a single

client or location

Check SSID, VLAN,

Username, Signal

Strength, SNR

under Client

details

Identify applications or

specific devices

consuming too much

bandwidth

Were you able to find

the root cause?

Address problems

related to the RF

environment

Yes

Use another custom

Dashboard to check

network utilization and

application usage

Use custom Dashboard and

check Channel Utilization,

SNR and Retry levels.

Block or rate-limit

unwanted applications

Prioritize business

critical applications

using AVC

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HOW TO ADDRESS NETWORK PERFORMANCE ISSUES USING NSIGHT APPROACH

1. Identify location and user MAC address by asking the user and confirm it in NSight. The easiest way to find a client is by

searching for its MAC address or part of the Hostname in the upper right corner of the UI:

2. After finding the client in NSight click on it and you will be redirected to the client view showing you all the details regarding this

particular user. This is real-time information. Confirm that client has sufficient Signal Strength as seen by the Access Point (typically not

less than -67dBm), good SNR (>25dB), low retry rate, also check Tx and Rx data rates last achieved by the client.

3. If the above checks out and nothing stands out as odd, take a look at the RF Health at the whole site where the issue has

been reported. Check specifically the band wireless client was using (i.e. 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz). Create customized dashboard

under ‘Dashboard’ tab for this purpose and make it publicly available. Often over utilized channel (too many APs or too many

neighboring networks on the same channel) will result in highly degraded performance. Note: Always use filters to get relevant

information based on when the issues has been reported. Available filters are: Time / WLAN / Band

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4. After confirming that RF is not a problem, i.e. client has good SNR, high data-rate, AP is not over utilized etc (or if RF

environment is not healthy investigate RF-side issues), create another custom Dashboard showing network utilization and

application usage. This will help accessing network side issues that might be the cause of poor performance:

5. Identify if there are any applications that are consuming huge amount of bandwidth. If they are not business critical apps you

should make a decision to either block or rate-limit them. Identify which applications should have a priority and create a set of

rules in the Application Policy giving a priority to these apps and optionally shape the traffic.

Application Visibility and Control is supported only on certain Access Points and Controllers. Please refer to the AVC tech brief for further details.